Saturday, February 12, 2011

A deadly disease

Hearing the news the other day that Jeannie Little had been diagnosed with Alzheimers Disease and was now living in a nursing home made me feel quite sad. Her daughter has created a research fund to look further into the cause of this awful disease one that is close to my heart. It's a disease that doesn't discriminate or care who becomes its next victim - as well as many ordinary every day persons it also made itself known to many well known people including President Ronald Reagan, Perry Como, Harold Wilson and Hazel Hawke the ex wife of one of Australia's Prime Ministers

I haven't said much recently about my aunt - mainly because each time I visit her in the nursing home I come out feel more and more upset and depressed. Its doesn't seem that long ago she was living life to the full and then getting angry at her doctor who had told her about the disease that was going to become more and more obvious - it soon began to cause us a lot of pain as well and at times trouble and bother. I wrote lots of posts about spending time either at the doctors or in the hospital A&E dept. The anniversary of the Black Saturday fires reminded me of this one - that was the night we had firefighters for company in the emergency dept.

Its so hard to look at photos like these and remember - an elegant lady with one of my daughters a few years ago
Looking like the lady she was on the terrace of her home in suburban Croydon

Talking to one of the spaniels she always seemed to have around her

And then to see her like this - a very frail lady who remembers nothing of her life, eats with her fingers, cannot put two words together, doesn't seem to know who you are or where she is. Yet from somewhere deep down she can still recognise and show an interest in a dog

This post is very touching. Thanks for sharing it. I am so sorry to hear about your aunt. My dad had Alzheimer's, too. I loved to go visit him. I could take the silence or the course of the disease as it came, but the hardest part for me was when it was time to leave - and walk away. I just wanted to stay with him. What he went through taught me so much about unconditional love.

It a horrible diease! My grandmother, who survived a war, buried a son and a grandson, helped raise 14 grandchildren her own 7 children and grow enough food in her Hawthorn backyard to feed them all. Nothing stopped her but for Alzheimers Disease. She is now in a hospital a place she hated being taken care of instead of her taking care of everyone else. She would not like this at all.